


“Who comes into a library to revise at nearly three in the morning?”

by HoransPayne



Series: NiamNetwork Themes [5]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoransPayne/pseuds/HoransPayne
Summary: Niall falls asleep in the library whilst revising for his end of year exams. Liam finds him.





	

Niall shoved his hands into his hair, raking his fingers through the dirty blonde locks. He blinked his eyes repeatedly, feeling the burning ache in them from the hours of sleepless nights. As he hung his head limply, hovering over the book on the desk before him, watching the words blend together into one, big, inky haze. He leant back into his chair, shifting around to relieve his stiff muscles, feeling as though he’d been in this chair for at least a year. He rested his head onto the back of the chair, and stared blankly at the ceiling. The brightened lights seemed to blind him, and contrasted greatly to the darkness of the sky outside the large windows that bordered the walls near the ceiling. 

The next thing Niall noticed was his arm being shaken. He blinked his eyes open slowly, not realising he’d dozed off. As his eyes adjusted to the room, he guessed that he couldn’t have been asleep for very long considering the blackness that somehow seemed to shine through the windows. Niall didn’t even know how a colour so dark could glow like that; perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or perhaps he was having it rubbed in his face how screwed he was – falling asleep in the library desperately trying to revise in the middle of the night. Thank god the library was open all hours. Niall carefully lifted his neck to sit up, being mindful of the ache in it caused from the way he’d have it hanging over the back of it. He reached his hand up to massage it lightly, as he looked to his right, suddenly noticing the presence next to him. Niall noticed his shoes first; he’d been looking at the floor when he first spotted him. His shoes were black, if he were to guess Niall would’ve said Nike, with a white sole. The laces were tied neatly, double knotted, both the same size. It seemed that the man that had tied them took care and time in making them tidy, whereas Niall’s were rushed and irregular. Next he saw his trousers. They, too, were black. They were workout trousers, which clung nicely to his legs, but not too tightly that it looked bad. The three white lines that decorated each leg signified to Niall that they were Adidas branded. The whites of the lines shone brightly against their dark, black backdrop. This impressed Niall a little; he didn’t seem to be able to keep his clothes brightly white very long after first buying them. He next saw his t-shirt, patterned with a picture of some black and white city, framed by the white of the shirt; just as bright as the stripes on his trousers. The sleeves were stretching against his arm muscles, which Niall was envious of. He had large hands, with the veins sticking out on the back snaking up his arms. One was holding a grey hoodie, neatly folded. Because of the way he’d folded it, Niall couldn’t tell if it was plain or patterned. The other hand lay lightly on Niall’s shoulder, which he hadn’t realised until the man gave it a squeeze to get his attention. It was then that Niall noticed he was being spoken to.

“Are you alright, mate?” Niall finally moved his gaze from the man’s chest, up his neck with a small birthmark in the centre of it, and eventually reached his face. And what a face! Niall couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone so attractive in his life before. He had these big, brown eyes that simply shone at him, as if they were glowing. They had a glint of humour in them, and Niall had recognised it in his voice when he had spoken previously. It was also shown in the smirk he was wearing, encompassed with a short, stubbly beard, with his plump and unbelievably pink lips; begging to be kissed in Niall’s opinion. He had big, thick eyebrows, the same shade of brown as the hair poking out of the black snapback placed atop his head. His smile grew when he spoke again, making Niall’s heart flutter as his eyes crinkled in the corners. His breath hitched slightly, hopefully going unnoticed by the other man. “Hey, mate? Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” Niall coughed, clearing his throat, whilst rubbing his eyes with the base of his hands. When he reopened them, he was shocked to see how close the other men put his face towards Niall’s. Any trace of humour had washed away, being replaced by a look of concern. His eyebrows furrowed over his eyes, his forehead wrinkled slightly, and his mouth turned down in a frown. 

“Are you sure?” He was leaning down so he was level with Niall’s seated position, with one arm pressed on the table, and the other on the back of Niall’s chair. Niall had to force himself to stop staring at the way his arm muscles were flexing in this new position.

“Yeah, I’m all good.” Niall nodded, sitting back in his chair, trying to distance himself from the other man. He feared that if he was too close, the man may hear how loud Niall’s heart was thumping in his chest, as if dying to escape. The man mirrored Niall’s movements, and stood up straight again. 

“I just saw you sleeping here. It didn’t look very comfortable.” Niall rubbed his sore neck, as if to confirm the man’s concerns. “I thought I’d wake you up to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.” Niall felt his stomach warm at this comment. He couldn’t stop the small smile that crept onto his face.

“Erm, thanks, I guess.” The man returned his smile, before walking over to the chair opposite Niall and plonking himself down. He quietly removed some books from a bag, that Niall hadn’t realised he was holding until now, and placed them on the table before him. Niall checked his phone for the time: 2:47am. He looked up at the man opposite him and raised his eyebrows.

“Who comes into a library to revise at nearly three in the morning?” Niall broke the silence that had fallen over the library once more. The man glanced up from the book he’d been flipping through to smirk at Niall. 

“I could ask you the same.” He shrugged.

“Well,” Niall raised a finger, to emphasise his point, “I’ve actually been here since six.”

The other man laughed lightly, wagging his finger mockingly back at Niall. “Well, we’re both here for the same reason.”

“When’s yours?” 

“Two days. You?”

“Tomorrow.” Niall had come to the library to revise for his end of year exams, desperate to get some last minute knowledge engraved into his mind. “Well, technically today.”

“What are you studying?”

“Medicine.” The man whistled at this.

“Ooh, got a brainbox then have we?” Niall laughed, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever. What about you?” Instead of answering, he just lifted the book he was reading, so Niall could see the cover: ‘Learning Legal Rules’. Niall cringed. “Law? God, rather you than me.” The man chuckled at this, placing his book back down.

“Yeah well, each to his own I guess.”

“What year are you?”

“First year. And you?”

“Yeah, me too.” Both men fell into another comfortable silence for a while. The two sat reading their respective textbooks. About ten minutes later, the man let out a large sigh. Niall glanced up, and smiled when he saw the man sprawled in his seat, head hanging off the back, legs spread out wide and arms hanging off either side. “Doing alright there?” 

He lifted his head when he heard Niall’s voice, grinning back at him.

“Yeah, yeah, just about ready to die any time now.” Niall’s laugh echoed around the empty library at this comment, and the other man’s smile grew upon hearing it.

“Do you want some help? I need a break from trying to learn what all these Latin terms are in English.”

“Erm, if you don’t mind, that’d be great actually.” He handed Niall some flashcards, which Niall spent the next hour or so quizzing him on. The hour that followed that one was spent the other way around. The final hour before daylight began streaming through the windows was spent learning about each other. Niall learnt that the man was called Liam, his favourite film was ‘Toy Story’, his favourite colour was purple, his favourite football team was West Bromwich Albion, they shared a middle name, and that he wanted to be a lawyer because his father didn’t want him to be a police officer; this was their compromise. Liam learnt that Niall’s favourite band was ‘The Eagles’, his favourite colour was green, his favourite football team was Derby County, despite growing up in Ireland, and that he wanted to be a doctor because he’d always wanted to be a superhero, and this is the closest way he could be.

 

It was that night that became the first of many Niall and Liam spent revising together. Liam became Niall’s guinea pig when he had to learn new skills for his medicine course. He would test his blood pressure, sometimes scaring Liam, who was a bit of a fitness freak, by telling him it was high. He would check his ears, listen to his heartbeat, check his oxygen levels, and whatever else. The worst thing was when Niall was practicing to take blood:

“OW NIALL!” Liam pulled his arm roughly out of Niall’s grip. Niall grimaced at the loudness of Liam’s voice.

“I’m so sorry, Li. Let me just try one more time, I almost got it this time.” Liam gave him a side-eyed glance, glaring at him. Despite this, he hesitantly let Niall gently take hold of his arm again. He winced at the needle being poked into his arm, wondering how he’d ever let Niall talk him into this.

“YES!” Liam flinched when Niall suddenly shouted in his ear. “I got it!” He pulled the needle out of Liam’s arm carefully and began jumping around the room in excitement. Liam smiled fondly at his friend, incredibly proud that’d he done it, but also grateful that it was over. Niall hopped back over to Liam and wrapped his arms tightly round his neck in a hug. Liam reciprocated this by snaking his arms around Niall’s waist, in a way much more intimate than a friend would. As their eyes met, Liam saw Niall chewing on his lip, and found he couldn’t resist anymore. He leant forward and crashed their lips together. It was messy; their noses bumped and Liam kissed more of his chin than his lips, but it was something. And that little something made Niall go weak in the knees and went giddy inside.

Their second kiss went much smoother, and their plentiful of kisses that followed just got better and better. They fell in love faster than either of them ever expected them to. Liam first realised it when he placed a tender kiss on Niall’s forehead as he tucked him into bed, after he’d fallen asleep to Liam reading one of his essays to him; a regular occurrence, but Liam couldn’t find it in him to mind. Niall was too adorable as he slept for him to be bothered by it. Niall first realised his was in love the day they both graduated university, and he’d gone running over to Liam before being lifted into his arms. He’d buried his face into Liam’s shoulder, took in his scent, and had never felt more at home in his life. It was in that moment that he wanted so badly to spend the rest of his life with Liam that it ached. And so he did.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it. I wrote this for theme 5 of the NiamNetwork: College/University AU. Make sure you check out the Network on Tumblr for fics much better than my own, and really cool artwork, edits and all things Niam. I'm not really sure how I feel about this fic, I lost some of it when my laptop restarted and it hadn't saved, and I've not been great personally recently, so I'm hoping it's not reflected in my work. I'm sorry about the ending, I wanted to get this fic done because I won't have time tomorrow, and I wasn't sure how to end it. I really appreciate you checking out my story so thanks again! :)


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